


all night, or a hundred years

by devils_trap



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Cabin Fic, Fishing, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Recovery, eventually...he's got some trauma to work out but we'll get there, ferris BOOMER'S day INSIDE SPECIAL LOCATIONS, gonna be real soft to staci pratt B), like the wolf's den and cars and MY HEART, literally just my boy deputy flowers taking sweet sweet pratt away for fishing n softness, rating is for later chapters and tags will be added as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 00:29:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14800868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devils_trap/pseuds/devils_trap
Summary: She quickly realized his frequent visits had nothing to do with them at all. He'd go wherever Pratt went, Fall's End or Jacob's Gate or the bottom of fucking Wishbone Lake, following him around like a lovesick puppy. A Great Dane tripping over his own paws for oblivious, troubled Staci Pratt. All puppy dog eyes and his tail tucked between his legs, eager to ease the furrow in Pratt's brow. Lick the blood off his fingers and curl up to sleep nestled at his side.





	all night, or a hundred years

Deputy Lincoln Flowers II comes around the Wolf's Den a lot after killing Jacob, more than he ever had before.

At first, Tammy assumes it's out of a sense of guilt—a mangled, bloody thing writhing in his chest, plaguing him over what had happened to Eli. It wasn't his fault and she had told him as much, the fault lay at the rotting feet of Jacob Seed and Jacob Seed alone, but it pleased her to see him still coming around after things had quieted down. She would've liked it to be out of kinship, out of brotherhood or something more dutiful than guilt—but guilt she could work with.

Guilt she could wring out of him, twisting and squeezing it from his soul like so much blood from a sopping towel. He'd still be stained with it, spotted and red no matter how they scrubbed, but he'd be lighter for it.

No longer dripping it, at least. Able to absorb the good will and community they could provide him, if only he'd let them. No rest for the wicked and even less for the savior of Hope County.

She'd started watching him, trying to figure out how best to go about trying to actually recruit him into the fold. Eli had been satisfied with Flowers coming and going as he pleased, so long as he helped the war effort in the Mountains now and then, but Tammy wanted more. Kid's a good leader, humble and kind but with a firm hand. The warmth in his eyes and the small smile he nearly always wore drew people to him like a moth to a flame, and his personality, sugary sweet like molasses, all _aw shucks_ with a dimpled grin, kept them there, kept them coming back to him.

She could use that, _they_ could use that—prop him up and let him shine, let him draw every able bodied man and woman left into them like a God damn beacon, Hope County's greatest Hope.

So she watched as he helped resecure the bunker and the surrounding areas. Watched as he climbed trees to adjust broken cameras, as he scaled rockface to get to Jacob's broken wolf beacons, as he cleared out Jacob's remaining outposts with just a semi-automatic rifle, his fists, and a blue tick heeler.

Watched as he checked in on Staci Pratt at the beginning and end of each and every visit, his shoulders hunched and his sweet eyes soft and sad. Curly dark brown hair flattened by a hat he absently wrings in his hands while he talks, voice lowered and mindful of Pratt's shot nerves. Aiming to soothe, sweet like molasses, slow dripping like honey.

Unasuming, undemanding, but _wanting_. Quietly and respectively.

She quickly realized his frequent visits had nothing to do with them at all. He'd go wherever Pratt went, Fall's End or Jacob's Gate or the bottom of fucking Wishbone Lake, following him around like a lovesick puppy. A Great Dane tripping over his own paws for oblivious, troubled Staci Pratt. All puppy dog eyes and his tail tucked between his legs, eager to ease the furrow in Pratt's brow. Lick the blood off his fingers and curl up to sleep nestled at his side.

Didn't mean she couldn't capitalize on his presence, though. It wasn't what she wanted, wasn't anywhere near his true potential, but she could use it. They fed and sheltered Pratt, kept him from flying off the rails by keeping him busy, kept him _human_ —continuing to help out the Whitetails was the least Flowers could do to pay them back.

(It's not as Simple as that, she'd've helped even if Flowers wasn't so attached, but it's easier to put that on his shoulders, too. Hope County's own beautiful Atlas.)

-

He tries to come around once every other day, radioing beforehand to ask if they need anything. Whatever she asks him for, he'll do his damnedest to bring it along. Water, food, extra ammunition. Milk crates of vinyl for Wheaty a few times, lighting up the kid's face for _days_.

Once, she'd absently grumbled about losing a few portable generators to disrepair and found him banging on the bunker door a few hours later, a generator tucked under each meaty arm. He'd handed them over with a grin on his face, a bag of Pratt's favorite candy clenched between his teeth.

If he'd had a tail when he handed that candy over, Pratt's eyes guarded but softening, Tammy's sure he would've wagged himself airborne.

She's just about finished cleaning her rifle when a crackle of static fills the room, followed swiftly by the rich, familiar timber of Flowers' voice.

 _Right on time_ , she thinks. _Just under forty-eight hours since he last came by, clean like clockwork._

“Anyone there? Y'all need anything? Over.”

That soft, rolling drawl as it emits from their central radio unit has Resistance fighters coming out of the woodwork, clamoring towards the controls so they can speak with him themselves. Like a pack of bitches in heat, desperate for the attention of the the alpha male in their midst. _Deputy_ this and _Sir_ that, sometimes the occasional _Mr. D-Deputy Flowers, Sir_ from the more impressionable recruits tripping over their fawning tongues, voices drenched in awe and adoration. Pawing at the walkie, ripping it away from one another with hissed threats so they can get their two cents in, hearts sparkling in their eyes.

She gets it, _boy_ does she get it. It's a no-brainer, really—Deputy Flowers is a force of fucking nature, 6'3” and 200lbs, as red blooded American as they come. The man's a brick shithouse, as strong and built as he is huge. Even after a few go 'rounds with Jacob's insidious brand of torture—starvation and brainwashing and Training until the point of exhaustion, and then being forced to continue on on empty—he's still got more heft and muscle than anyone else she knows.

He's _pretty_ , too. Rich tanned skin and a jawline strong enough to hang from. Eyes so blue they rival John Seed's, with startling patches of chocolate brown spliced in there for character— _sectoral heterochromia_ he'd called it, a soft pink heat in the apples of his cheeks. Effortlessly quaffed thick, curly chestnut hair even when covered in guts and gore, and teeth so bright and white Tammy has to wonder if he's running around Hope County killing Peggies with fucking whitening strips on.

The first time she'd seen him, she'd written him off immediately as just another pretty boy wannabe who'd get himself killed in a matter of days. She knew his type Before all of this Cult shit happened, men who had just enough power and looks to skirt by before shit hit the fan, back when law _actually_ meant some semblance of order in these parts.

In the end, all of them had had their asses handed to them—what's some hick transplant gonna do out here in this mess besides wind up with his body tangled up with barbed wire like some fucked up Christmas present, tied up to a cross on the side of the road? Arrows in that toned abdomen of his. Crows picking out those pretty mismatched eyes. The wind passing through soft curls just as the maggots do. Straight, sparkling white teeth shining in the sun as the flesh decomposes off his skull, sloughing to the ground.

But Flowers is the entire package—strong and attractive and highly capable, yet he doesn't let it get to his head. A genuine, _actual_ nice guy. As naive and sweet as he is large, puppy eager and sugary sweet. He's a veritable killing machine out in the field, lethal with anything you give him—a compound bow, a Smith  & Wesson, a fucking reel of dental floss—but it's his heart and character that'll give Joseph Seed the real run for his money.

That and the fact that he's already almost single-handedly brought the Cult to their knees.

Tammy swerves around them, taking a deep breath as she waits for the first handful or so of his fans to say their peace. One of them is toggling through the camera feeds displayed on the desk beside them, hopping from cameraview to cameraview until she squeaks and points at Flowers' sweaty, handsome face as he trudges through the undergrowth, Boomer at his side. The golden light of the setting sun sharpens his cheekbones, highlights his jaw. Warms him like he's Apollo, all fire and war and beauty and righteousness. Handsome and so, so dangerous.

“Tell him we're running low on fishing gear. _Someone_ said they were an experienced fisher and then went and snapped all our line,” Tammy says with a huff. The someone in question shifts away from her, closer to the videofeed of Flowers and Boomer. He tucks his face into his right shoulder and flushes under her scrutiny.

Besides Pro Bass curling in on himself over there, it's like she hadn't even spoke. They talk over her, ignoring her words as they fight over who gets to speak to the Deputy next. On a tiny TV screen, Tammy watches Flowers' cheeks darken with more than just exertion, a nervous smile on his face. He looks at the radio in his hands like it's an armed bomb, reluctant and unsure of how to respond.

She practically has to beat them with the stock of her rifle to get them to shoo. When the room is blessedly clear, Tammy slumps in the office chair before her Control Room setup and sighs.

“Hey, Flowers,” she says. His shoulders noticeably perk up when he registers it's just her, no other chorusing voices calling out for his attention.

“Hey! Need anythin'? Over.” He steadily treks on, moving out of range of the camera they'd been watching him from, but with a few quick keystrokes she finds the next videofeed.

“Y'don't _actually_ have to keep saying 'over', we've talked about this,” she pokes, amused. “I feel like I'm in a bad spy drama over here.”

From the screen, she watches him laugh, his head thrown back and his free arm curled around his abdomen. Boomer knocks his head into Flowers' leg, grinning and yipping as his master does. After a few nudges of encouragement, he drops his arm to scritch from Boomer's ear down the scruff of his neck, much to Boomer's enjoyment.

“Well, you're kinda like my handler in the Whitetails, and you _are_ holin' out in a bunker, Tammy.” He skids down a small hill, wiping sweat and dirt from his forehead. From the GPS location of the camera noted in the bottom of the screen, at the pace he's walking Tammy figures he'll be on her doorstep in about forty-five minutes, give or take. Boy's got a long stride, and he's coming from up top the mountain, so it's mostly downhill. “Pretty spy movie to me. Over.”

“S'only because those God damn Peggies burnt down my house.” Images she'd rather not deal with flicker through her mind, causing the still tender, never-not-aching parts of her soul to twinge and sting with sorrow.

A swingset, charred and half-melted in their backyard, plastic dripping onto fresh black mulch. A white picket fence stained with blood and soot. The wooden floorboards of her home roaring with fire. Her husband's truck, with its windows bashed in and its tires slashed and its clean, cherry red paint job marred with a starburst cross and the word SINNERS.

A lone, solitary Cheeseburger kiddie pool, untouched and unmarred because she had just purchased it. Strapped to the top of her Volvo, receipt balled up in her back pocket. It had been a _surprise_. She hadn't even gotten to show her babies it before—Before—

She snaps out of it to Flowers' low, apologetic words in her ear, and his pinched, sad face on the camera. Her view of him is blurred and out of focus until she blinks a few times. She sniffles discretely before broadcasting again.

“It's all right, Flowers. Calm down,” she tells him, and she smiles sadly, gratefully, when he drops his shoulders and nods. She doesn't know if he knows that the others tend to look for him on camera whenever they can, and while it's nice to have a visual on him, she doesn't _need_ it. Knew he was going to react like that just because it's who he is.

The button on his walkie is pressed early enough for her to hear as well as see the soft hum that leaves his lips. The thumb of his free hand is tucked beneath the strap of his hiker's backpack. “Still. Y'all need anything? I'm almost there.”

No “over” that time. Her lips quirk into an off, wobbly little smile. Can't really go all in on it when her wounded heart is throbbing in her chest, when the kiddie pool she'd purchased for her babies ended up in the bottom of a fucking bunker.

“Just some fishing line, if you've got some to spare.” She watches him nod again, shaking loose a curl. Sweat plasters it to his dirty, streaked forehead.

“Plenty, plenty. Need me to go fishin'? Been kinda itchin' for it recently. Always cleared my head,” he says. “Shit, hold on a sec. Over.” His walkie is then attached to the front of his utility khaki, the rifle slung low on his hip tucked behind him. When his hands are free, Flowers sits down on the lip of a cliff and pats his thighs. Dutifully, Boomer wiggles forward and sits in his master's lap, his back snug to Flower's chest and his little chest puffed out, proud and excited.

She watches them as they slide expertly the cliff's face, Boomer's eager, happy tail smacking Flowers in the gut as they descend.

“Can't believe that dog'll just sit there, happy as a clam,” she huffs to herself. Flowers rises to his feet once at the bottom, gives Boomer an enthusiastic rub-down, and unclips his walkie again. “Actually, Flowers, there _is_ something I kinda need.”

“Oh—oh yeah, okay, shoot. Over,” he says.

“It's, uh. It's about Deputy Pratt.”

Flowers stops walking. He stares at the walkie in his hands while Boomer walks forward for a few paces without him. When the dog realizes his master's stopped, he yips and runs back to his feet. The tension in Flowers' shoulders has Boomer circling around him, checking for danger. Spotting none, he settles for pressing himself tight to Flowers' side and anxiously licking at his fingertips.

“He okay?” Flowers asks. “He hasn't – hasn't hurt himself, has he?” The spot he's stopped in is beautiful, tall grasses lapping like waves at his calves, wild flowers dancing in the gentle breeze pushing through his damp hair. The setting sun at his back has painted the land in rich oranges and violets, warm and picturesque.

Mesmerizing, wondrous Montana mountainside, fit for a postcard. Yet there's Lincoln Flowers II, shoulders taut, the tension ratcheting up his spine to lock his joints up, rigid as a stone.

“No, Flowers. At least not yet.” Tammy sighs and scrubs at her face.

Staci Pratt is a delicate subject, least of all because of Flowers' sugary sweet puppylove. He's wounded, figuratively as well as literally—his nose is still busted and messy, his eyes haunted, hunted. His hands are steady around the shotgun he insists on always carrying, but his voice wavers and falters, chopped and mangled by the forced rewiring they've barely scratched the surface on undoing. Nerves clawing at his throat, jagged and raw as he clamps down on the Training he'd just forcibly learned.

He's good with that shotgun, almost too good. Always had a steady arm and good aim, but back then it was holding a baseball bat instead of a Mossberg 590A1. Detached in a way he never was before, not that Tammy knew him then, but she knew _of_ him. Met him in passing a few times, back when he was in high school in the neighboring town where her husband had taught.

Cocksure local boy, _Just Pratt_ , never Staci, not since elementary school. Varsity baseball team, hell of a switch hitter. Intelligent, but hid it well to blend in. Dulled himself down to fit in better with his team, didn't want to attract attention to anything but his strength and prowess.

Certainly not to his name, soft and flowery, _girlie gay you sure you're not a faggot huh Staci_ , or his wit, useless among the meatheads he so desperately wanted to belong with.

He had a strong arm, lean and talented, and was quick on his feet physically and mentally—her husband Rudolfo had helped send him to college on a ball scholarship and for some reason he came back to podunk Hope County. Tammy figures it was because Missoula might've been too big a pond for him, too many bigger fish swimming around.

Sometimes she looks at him prowling the Wolf's Den, checking the entrances and shimmying up the ladder to patrol the perimeter, and desperately wishes he had just stayed away. He looks like how she figured her Gabriel would've had he reached his mid twenties. Tall and slim, strong arms and a narrow waist. Thick, dark hair and big brown doe eyes with soft, fawn skin.

She lets him stay because he's useful, because he keeps Flowers around—not because he achingly reminds her of what she's lost, what she might've had one day.

He needs something and _she_ needs something, and that's that.

“He's—” She stops to wet her lips. Flowers still hasn't moved. “He's in a bad way, Lincoln.”

There, a gentle flinch. Almost imperceptible, but she catches how the sunset bathes over his cheekbone from the flash of a new angle.

Always Pratt, never anything else.

Always Flowers, never anything else.

Both fighting something. Each battle entirely different.

“He's been doing better.” As if the flinch was all he needed to get going again, Flowers continues on. His pace is faster now, parting the grasses around him so forcefully they bend beneath his weight and cannot readily spring back. If he keeps this rate up, he'll be at the Den in half an hour or less. “He has, I know it. I've _seen_ it.”

Tammy's humming to pacify him before she's even hit the broadcast button. “I know, I know. He just—he's hitting a wall, Flowers. It's been almost two months. Jacob's gone. Hell, everyone but Joseph's gone. He needs _more_ , and soon.”

Rocks and pebbles skid down the cliffside after him as Flowers scrabbles down its face, Boomer hiked up under one arm like he'd carried those generators. From that spot tucked to Flowers' side, Boomer's within face-licking range and wastes no time trying to ease the knitted brow off his face via slobber.

Dog spit shines on Flowers' face at the bottom of the descent, but his expression is less troubled. “You know of any good therapists 'round here? The health insurance with the County is shit but I'm kinda loaded right now, so—”

“Take him away for a bit, Lincoln.” No flinch this time, but her words undo a little of Boomer's efforts. She takes a deep, steeling breath before her next suggestion. “Maybe to your Grandfather's cabin? Both of you need a break.”

He's too Good a man to tell her to fuck off, though she can tell he kind of wants to. He just exhales hard and marches forward. A muscle jumps in his jaw before he speaks again. “I'll be there in twenty minutes. Over.”

She watches him move on camera until he's out of range. Instead of searching him out again, she simply waits with her hands in her lap until she hears the familiar sound of his boots descending down the ladder, a soft click-squeak of rubber soles against blue-painted steel.

Didn't even need twenty.

On the last rung, he lets Boomer jump from under his arm and to the floor. Then he's on the ground, too, knees barely bent to absorb the fall.

His face is dirtier than it was on camera. She wonders if he ran the rest of the way, his heart in his throat. Lovesick and worried for a man who doesn't have a clue—unable to see what's right in front of him through the haze of his trauma.

“Where is he?” Flowers quietly calls.

She waits to answer until Boomer comes over to greet her. His back leg kicks involuntarily as she scratches him beneath his chin and down his chest.

“He's in the mess. Just finished his circuit before you radioed in,” she tells him. Even with the distance between them she can smell him wafting in with the summer air coming in from the still open hatch, clean fresh sweat and dry grass, fresh earth.

Flowers gives her a nod and pivots.

“G'on now, Boom. Go see Pratt.” With a quick pat on his back haunch, Tammy shoos the dog away like she had the Whitetails earlier. Only this time, towards Flowers instead of away.

-

Pratt's counting his ammo stores when Flowers enters the mess. One then two then three, then four, five, six 12 gauge shells, popped from the Mossberg for counting, high brass shining in the low light. He's got his stuff spread out across the little corner table, ammo box to his right, back tight to the wall so he can safely see both entrances to the room.

From the even, steady gait he can safely guess who it is coming towards him. The soft accompanying _click click click_ of nails against the concrete floor is a dead giveaway, confirms that it's Deputy Flowers without a doubt, but Pratt looks up anyway.

Has to be sure, can't afford to be wrong.

Flowers has on his trademark small smile, but this one's wilted somehow, weighed down by sadness. The corners have drooped and his brow has furrowed to match it. He looks older than his twenty-six years, with dirt streaked across his forehead and the weight of a whole County weighing him down.

“Hey,” Flowers calls, voice soft and quiet as he crosses the room. Like this is normal, like this is Before. But it's not, not only because of what's happened, but because back then Flowers had been so nice to him and Pratt had been pissy. Hackles up, upper lip quivering in an almost snarl.

They hadn't been friends, and even now they weren't. They were some Other Pratt couldn't define. He worried what they were like a loose tooth, fiddled with it constantly though he could never decide if he wanted the tooth _out_ or for it to just stabilize.

Everyone had liked him from the get-go, with his easy charm and his dimpled, bashful grin. He brought doughnuts in without being asked, worked shitty shifts so Hudson and her girlfriend could finally have a date night that wasn't mapped out three weeks in advance. Even with his shitty last name— _Yeah, my last name is Flowers. Y'all got a problem?—_ and his foreign Southern drawl, everything was so effortless for him that it made Pratt feel terribly, horribly small. Flowers rolled with the punches, he took all of the flack the New Guy gets and he did it with grace.

So Pratt got petty, got defensive. Acted like he knew so much when he had only been a Deputy himself for a couple of years before Flowers came around.

He refused to call him by anything but Rookie or Probie. He'd even called him Probie and belittled him the night the helicopter went down.

And yet, there Flowers was a handful of weeks later, destroying Jacob's toys and freeing Pratt. His face soft and relieved and Other when he finally found him in Jacob's Gate.

His hands shaking as he cut Pratt free, _Oh God, Pratt. A-Are you okay? Jesus. Jesus, Pratt. Okay, okay. You're okay, we're okay, I gotcha._

A cold, wet nose against his knuckles shakes him out of his thoughts. He startles only minutely, but it's enough to knock the backs of his fingers against Boomer's snout. The dog startles, too, looking at Pratt with wide brown eyes.

“Sorry. Sorry, Boomer,” Pratt whispers, voice rough from frequent disuse. It seems to be enough, as Boomer melts forward again. Paws on the bench to get to more of Pratt, Boomer's tag wags furiously as Pratt scratches him up and down his back. Gets beneath Boomer's bandanna and watches one of his ears twitch with a lopsided, lazy smile. “Hey, Flowers.”

Out of the corner of his eye Pratt can see Flowers' smile bouncing back, as resilient as ever. He wants to be like that, open and warm even after enduring horror and strife like he knows Flowers has. Instead, it's only made Pratt shrewder, made him retreat further into himself.

“Do you—” Flowers starts and then stops, uncharacteristically uncomfortable across the table. He pantomimes with his hands, chops loosely through the air like his body had begun to act out his words but his brain refused to get his mouth to cooperate.

Pratt doesn't find it cute. It's not, and neither is the blush spreading softly across the slightly sunburnt expanse of his nose, the apples of his cheeks.

_It's not cute, shut the Fuck up, Pratt. Not fucking cute. Not fucking gay. Shut the fuck up._

Those mismatched eyes watch him critically for a few moments. It's enough to make Pratt shift on his side of the picnic table, his fingers fiddling anxiously with the slugs he's yet to reload into his shotgun. He had planned on counting them and then reloading quickly, so he wasn't caught unaware with an unloaded gun.

Flowers always catches him unaware. Gets under his skin and Pratt doesn't know if he's _trying_ or not, but he hates it. Makes him feel weak and Weak, weakweakweak. Wants Flowers to just leave him alone, leave him in his un-peace.

Maybe it's what he deserves, this misery. Un-Peace on Earth.

“Okay, that's it.” The picnic table shifts as Flowers jumps to his feet. Pratt's shells clink together and slide on the tabletop. One hits the muzzle of his shotgun and bounces off to careen to the floor.

Pratt doesn't jump, doesn't startle. But the unexpected motion has his shoulders raising, hackles up. Prepared to fly up and back, it's all on Flowers to make the next move.

With a lightning fast squat and rise, Flowers extends the wayward slug out towards Pratt. He's got long, thick fingers and short, square nails, wrapped tight high on the high brass and red case of the cartridge. A few of them are bruised, smashed in doors or jammed during punches or crunched beneath boots. Likely damaged during one of Flowers' innumerable Peggie altercations.

Maybe even from a fight in Jacob's Gate, when he had selflessly rescued Pratt.

Tentatively, Pratt goes to take the slug. Flowers' grip on it is so high that no matter where Pratt goes to retrieve it, their grips are going to overlap. It's not quite a humiliation, Pratt's gotten _very_ familiar with those, but it makes his cheeks burn all the same. His stomach twists in a strange way as his fingers wrap around the tops of Flowers'.

“We're going out,” Flowers tells him. He blinks those big, spotted eyes at Pratt once, twice, and then his jaw falls open a little. “Wait—uh. Shit. Okay. We're—going out of _here_. Yeah. C'mon, Pratt. Get your stuff. Do you know how to fish? I can teach you.”

Pratt snorts before he can think better of it, but the action doesn't piss Flowers off. He's not Jacob, not everything is a disrespect, a threat to his authority. Flowers fucking _grins_ at him, like Pratt's reluctant amusement at his rambling is something good.

Those dimples stare him in the face.

“Of course I can fish, I live in bumfuck Montana,” Pratt mumbles, the words rumbling and crackling in his throat. His cheeks warm and he smiles more despite himself when Flowers sits back down and leans across the table. Crowding Pratt in while still keeping a respectable distance between them, ever mindful of Pratt's space.

He wants Flowers in his space as much as he desperately wants him _away_.

“Cool. Cool! Okay. We're going to my grandfather's cabin. It's pretty remote but beautiful this time of year. I haven't been up in...in a while, but the fishing's great.” Flowers looks like he's talking himself into this as much as he is Pratt, but Pratt says nothing. He lets the low rumble of Flowers' voice wash over him, warm and calm. Tries to decipher the feverishly bright meaning behind blue-and-brown, brown-and-blue eyes. “It's not even that far from here. We could walk, or take an ATV since it's mostly off-road, or—or.”

“Or...?” Pratt prompts, easily reeled in by the explosion of excitement in Flowers' eyes.

“You wanna fly a helicopter again? If not, if it's too soon—”

“God, I wanna fly again. Can – can I? Just tell me where and—”

Flowers scrambles to his feet, too long limbs tripping him up for a moment until he unfolds himself. His excitement is contagious, even with the ever-present worry oppressive in Pratt's chest. It's warm, _Flowers_ is warm, and despite himself Pratt lets himself bask in it a little.

He misses feeling good, misses excitement. Even if it's borrowed, he can play like it's his. Maybe that'll allow it to return to him faster? God he hopes so. Wants to be Enough, to be happy again, somehow.

“Gimme like – ten minutes, okay? Gonna get you up in the air again. You, me, Boomer, Lake Snowshoe—it's gonna be great, Pratt, I promise.” Flowers is out of the room before Pratt knows it, the buckles and zippers on his pack jingling as he goes, out of sync with the rubber soles of his shoes squeaking on the floor.

It hits Pratt as soon as Flowers is out of sight.

Lake _Snowshoe_? Jesus Fuck.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this started out as one thing and clearly ended up another?? cool awesome.
> 
> if you're like me and really interested in what other people's deputies look like, sweet, sweet deputy flowers ii is mostly based off sweet, sweet henry cavill when he was riiiiight between that delicate twinky cusp of twunk and straight up hunk.


End file.
